From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [184]
“Sure,” Warden said. “Why not? Dont bawl, for Christ sake.”
“Then why read me off? I’m not bawling. And what do you mean we got to get in and win this war? We’re all ready in, except for sending troops.”
“Sure,” Warden agreed. “Thats it.”
“And maybe the Ruskies and the Jerries will get in it with each other and kill each other off and save us the trouble. Anyway, it looks like they will. In spite of this treaty.”
“Fine,” Warden said. “Fine. The more thats dead the less to feed the more beer for me. What are you arguing about?”
“Why dont you talk sense? I’m not arguing. You’re arguing. You started this argument.”
“Did I? Well then I’m ending it. As of right now.”
He opened the screendoor between the garbage racks and stacks of empty cases on the porch and went into the kitchen of Choy’s restaurant irritably, with Pete following cursing chokingly and impotently angrily.
They were among the scant dozen noncoms in the Regiment who had the privilege of sitting and drinking in Choy’s kitchen and now they sat down and prepared themselves, unbuttoning their shirts under their loosened ties and rolling up their sleeves two turns and propping their feet up on Choy’s freshly scrubbed meatblock, and then called for Old Choy who had been sitting on a high stool in the corner to bring them beer. They were going to make a party.
“Hey, Old Choy, you heathen Chinee,” Warden bellowed. “You blingee beer, eh? Blingee two four six beer. Chop-chop!”
He held up ten fingers and the eighty-year-old statue in the corner came to life and shuffled perilously across the kitchen to the ice chest grinning hugely under the thin straggly white beard. Old Choy always grinned at Warden, because since Young Choy, his eldest son, had taken over the business from him the ancient one was not allowed to go out front where the customers were and where Young Choy was now in the shouting Payday hubbub, and the old man, who sat in the kitchen all day every day in his black silk skull cap and long embroidered robe that Young Choy who had given up ancestor worship for American business ethics called bad for blisness, worshipped Warden because Warden liked to come sit in the kitchen and drink beer and kid the old man, whenever he had the blues.
“Huba-huba,” Warden bellowed after him with a wink at Pete, “wiki-wiki, chop-chop. You feet, stickee floor, old goat. Me in hully, old man, you bletta snappem shit.”
Old Choy tottered to the meatblock with an armload of cans.
“You goat, Old Choy,” Warden grinned. “Goat, see? You mother goat. Mama-San she goat, see? She blingee you goat. Goat, see? Goat. Baa-a-a.” He put his fingers under his chin and waggled them at the Chinese.
Old Choy set the beer on the block, his almond eyes closed to bright slits, and chuckled with great glee at being called an old goat.
“No goat,” he chuckled. “You goat, Walden.”
Warden grabbed an empty can off the block, his bright eyes dancing in the broad big face, the energy pouring out of him in dazzling radiations, the lets-make-this-a-party energy.
“See, old goat,” he bellowed ferociously, and bent the can double with one movement using his thumbs for fulcrum on the seam. “You do that? You makee can double? You call me goat, I make you double. Like this, see?”
He took another can and bent it. Then he worked his way with a sudden savagery through all the empties standing on the block, bending them viciously easily and tossing them over his shoulder into the trash box. “See? like this. See? like this. You bletta no mess with me, old man goat.”
The Chinese stood before him, grinning all over his eroded face, his shoulders shaking with his chuckling, his head doddering with age.
“Blingee beer,” Old Choy said. He held out his hand with a delighted grin. “Me blingee beer. Now you play.”
“Ha-ha,” Warden laughed, “ho-ho. Me no can play. Not got